Write a short summary of what happens in the ambient or digital execution or campaign.

Xbox’s competitor had bought all the marketing rights to FIFA 18, a huge football videogame. So Xbox leveraged something bigger than videogame football - real football. Partnering with superstar club Real Madrid, we translated real football matches, move by move and in real time, into the corresponding commands for FIFA on Xbox. The dynamic, animated perimeter boards at Real Madrid’s stadium were the centrepiece of the campaign. The perimeter boards became a utility, teaching the audience (at the stadium and those watching at home) how to play like Real Madrid – on Xbox’s version of FIFA, all while never mentioning the game. When all other brands were just using perimeter boards as a space for branding, Xbox used the perimeter boards to not just sell FIFA 18, but make people better at it.

Cultural/Context information for the jury

In the lead up to the launch of many big videogames there’s a bidding war for marketing rights. For FIFA 18, an important game for Xbox, our competitor PlayStation snapped up all the marketing rights. This meant that while PlayStation had total freedom to advertise the game any way they wanted, we at Xbox had the opposite – a 100% ban on marketing the game. We couldn’t use any game assets, the logo or even show our own game packshot. So we had to somehow market a game we were forbidden from marketing.